The problem is that offensively, Arsenal has lost several steps. Ødegaard is the biggest example, huge drop-off stats wise.
Having a solid defense helps a lot, I agree. And Arteta has opted to go for more control over a game in a style that’s more conservative in terms of wasting energy. There are still glaring issues. Most important one is that they have two goalkeepers who tend to throw away the hard work of the defense in an instant. Raya has directly been responsible for goals conceded in what six games now? And Ramsdale has been quite bad for over a year now. They need a serious upgrade in goal next summer.
The rules of the game are shit and need to be adjusted in order to encourage more enjoyable, attacking football.
i mean boring football can go long ways i hate to mention it but look at greece’s 2004 euro run, boring, boring football but they won the bloody thing
#ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
Bottlers
For noobs more likely means no way in football journalism
They won the title playing boring football, way back before the sport was properly invented
Exact same happened to us, we played more attacking and generally better football the year we won the UCL compared to a more controlled style when we won the league the following year.
let’s be real though we should’ve won the league the year we won the UCL, we lost it on 1 point
Then you shouldn’t have won it m8
Let’s be real though. We should’ve won the league but after 38 games, another team had more points than us
Honestly I think it was more the determination to win the league after losing by a point and the motivation from winning the UCL that launched us to the title the next season.
I actually think our major style change occurred after 17/18, we were way more free flowing and open that season and changed it all up the next season.
I mean you all had less points the next year. Just teams fluctuate and city didn’t get such an insane point total the next year
Very similar to man city too. Won the treble last year because they improved defensively.
We saw it in the Arsenal v Man city match, 2 teams that set up to make it very difficult for the opposition to play through them. Resulting in an arguably more turgid encounter.
I honestly think the title race will be so close between Liverpool, Arsenal and City that it’s a complete toss-up at this stage over what happens. I’m dying for Arsenal to win, but I can’t say it’s more than a 1/3 chance.
Injuries and fitness are likely going to be the decider. In that case, I’d give an edge to City, unfortunately.
I don’t see it as even that close tbh… 60% chance city wins it, 20% each for Arsenal/Liverpool
Experience as well. Liverpool still have prime players who’ve won everything (Salah, vvd, Alisson, Trent)
Arsenal are nowhere near 1/3 chance. Iirc city are at 80 or 90% and Liverpool are a bit above arsenal.
Shut up, nerd!
To even be in the position for a third of a chance is solid progress from just two seasons ago.
Spurs obviously can best them all
And then you have all the other top 10 teams are incredibly hard to win away at
I think AF Cup is the difference this season. Liverpool loses Salah, Arsenal loses Saka, but City loses no one.
City lost Rodri and dropped important points. I know they have more squad depth than both Liverpool and Arsenal but it’s Rodri the one player they cannot replace in case he gets injured again or suspended, unlike any other position on the field. It’s definitely unlikely that we’ll miss more games this season but anything can happen
saka the famous english star?
Has to be trolling lmao.
But yea, Liverpool lose Salah and Endo, possibly Matip aswell? Not sure if he still plays for his national team or that he retired.
Arsenal will lose Partey, which we have done for the whole season anyway, Elneny (who is just getting fit) and Tomiyasu (who has been very important for us.
Not ideal, but could be worse
Could be worse yes. But Partey and Timber are huge loses.
I do think we would be much more legitimate contenders if Partey was fit
Do you know that black doesn’t mean they play for an African country? Try reign in your racism a bit. Here’s a clue, neither of the two Arsenal players you mentioned, will be going to an African competition
LMAOOOO
And we played even better (I.e more attacking) football the first year we got to the final under Klopp.
To be fair we had to because the defence was still a total shambles at that point. No VVD until January and no Alisson either.
I mean this ignores that you had the second most points in history
If just was unlucky it was city’s best league campaign
Had zero to do with playstyle
I mean you for 98 points that CL season. You were 100% good enough to win the league in fairness
The fact they got 98pts and didn’t win the league is astonishing. I can confidently say that will never happen again. Definitely won’t be beaten!
Didn’t Barca get 100 in Madrid 102 season? It will never happen again for sure tho
No offense to La Liga, but i think it’s a bit different than Premier League. Barcelona and Real Madrid are so much better than all the other teams
They got 97, and honestly I feel like it will happen again it cuz it happened in 21-22 w Liverpool getting 92 and still losing by a point
Same with mancity concede less win the league
That’s why they’re top of the table now right?
Great point, fantastically well made, pal 👍🏻
Didn’t they win it in October last season playing attacking football?
At our best we were 8 points clear against a team with two games in hand and we hadn’t played the best premier league side in history a single time yet. Only people looking for Twitter/TikTok engagement were thinking we were going to get more than 1 point from city. Based on that, assuming both games in hand city would win, and they would take 3 extra points in head to heads we were already 1 point behind even at our biggest lead.
Arsenal fan revisionism.
You know how that Chelsea tiktoker just screams obnoxiously about every Chelsea result?
That’s the sort of social media accounts that were claiming Arsenal were winning it. Obnoxious bait to get interaction from opposing fans.
Anyone one else was full of hope. But knew WE HAD TO BEAT CITY AT LEAST ONCE.
City wrapped the title up earlier than we should have let them. That was our choke. but not winning the title was not a choke. CITY WERE ALWAYS FAVES.
How many points did you drop against bottom half teams in the second half of the season? Nothing to do with city, arsenal bottled it
This is just objectively false lol. After City lost to Tottenham away, Arsenal were 5 points clear with a game in hand (City had played 21 games and had 45 points while Arsenal had played 20 games and had 50 points). Taking your logic of assuming Arsenal would win the game in hand then at their best they were in fact 8 points clear. So this is indeed revisionism
Every time the ‘collapse’ is brought up the table shows arsenal 8 points clear with city having 2 games in hand, and we had not played city once yet.
Yes we should have taken the title race to the last week or two. But we were never truly in the box seat. Saliba getting injured and dropping more points just wrapped the season up a bit earlier.
As a Liverpool fan I have to agree. They are very hard to beat and dropped points at home only because of individual errors. Haaland barely got into threatening positions which made arsenal so hard to beat.
City barely played full strength. KDB missing, no Rodri and a freak deflected goal. Haaland is no Harry Kane, he needs service.
Should we have offered to postpone the game until they have a fit squad? We were missing Partey and Timber as well.
And Saka
Sake and martinelli only fit for the bench as well.
Well arteta also didn’t have a fully fit squad and their main player saka couldn’t play due to injury. How is that different from yours.
PS: And you only own against United because you got a soft pen. We are the original treble winners!
Ah yes it’s the others who are too insecure, not you - the one making excuses for why city lost.
You’re a fucking loser, fuck off.
Not sure why you got downvoted for facts, some of our fans on here are so sensitive
Rodri and KDB are the two best midfielders in the world.
Haaland isn’t a creator of chances. Fact
It was an even game settled by a deflection. Akanji had a solid chance and we scored a deflection but other than that it was a 0-0 game
And we didn’t have saka partey or martinelli, why are you sucking up to a team can buy literally any player they want
Arteta doesn’t control city injuries + suspensions lol
We were hardly full strength either with no Saka and Martinelli coming off the bench after just returning from injury.
They’re both nailed on starters in that game otherwise.
what does a freak deflected goal have to do with defending ?
If they defended better then martinelli wouldn’t have shot the ball on target.
Haaland was in salibas back pocket mate. Saliba monstered him from the word go, literally. Also, kovacic should have seen red so I don’t get why you’d bring up the deflection.
Arsenal played without saka and Partey. Martinelli didn’t start as well, this is just a sad excuse.
Not to mention Timber. Probably the best player during pre-season. Team will be stacked for the last stretch of the season.
My point went right over your head. I wasn’t talking about why man city lost, my point being why Haaland was ineffective.
Suppose it was the same excuse in the Community Shield when he had 0 xG?
Clutching there mate. Arsenal had key players out as well
Then lost to Newcastle💀
I’m not sure, they were getting absolutely battered at Chelsea before Sanchez brain-sharted and gave them 2 goals.
Even then if Chelsea had finished better they should have won.
Get over it, you bottled it
Yeah that’s what I’m saying? Arsenal needed Chelsea to bottle it, couldn’t do it on their own at all
Weirdly the one game where I remember the opposition striker actually scaring me was hojlund, when he came on Gabriel clearly had a much harder time dealing with his physicality compared to whoever started that game (Martial?). But in the end that was a pretty comfortable victory
You were a Garnacho armpit hair away from conceding what probably would have been United’s winner, and then you scored a deflection in injury time.
“Pretty comfortable” 😅
Get over it. You’ve got the pre season friendly win to wank over
What’s in your spank bank then? 2nd place trophy?
At least we still pick up silverware now and then. Archaeological digs have more recent silverware than you twats.
You’ve won a carabao in the last 7 years while spending a billion and play like Burnley in your bruck down stadium and your training ground is running on 2g internet
At least it has 2g internet. Last time you cunts won the league you all had Nokia 3210s
Last time you beat a team in the top 9 the Titanic was still sailing
Comfortable victory lmfao
Ye, not like Garnacho was"offside" by a tonenail. Won’t even mention the VAR angle used to determine that
Then there’s Gabriel WWE style tackle on Hojlund which wasn’t a pen,both of those means we either win the game, mor draw the game
Don’t know what game you’re watching if you think that was a comfortable victory for you
Why is offside in quotes? He was pretty clearly offside.
Wwe style tackle just lol. Thanks for confirming you never watched the match.
I have never had a player strike the fear of god into me as much as Hojlund did that game. I still can’t explain why.
Man City are the most boring team not arsenal.
To be fair the “boring football” opinion could have been used to describe most teams in the PL at some point in the last few decades, whether they are winning or fighting relegation.
My hot take is that there should be a bonus point system, 3 points for the win + 1 extra point for scoring 4 goals, or 0 points for a loss, but 1 point for losing by a single goal.
Teams would chase goals more rather than being happy to sit back and defend their 2-0 lead.
or maybe the rules themselves should change, to encourage attacking. Right now football is the only sport in the world that I can think of where players actually get REWARDED for committing fouls. Maybe focus on that complete joke of a situation first
It is a form of entertainment after all.
It is first and foremost, a form of competition. As soon as entertainment takes the stage over competition, it is a completely different thing entirely.
The reason sports exist is competition first. The reason we find sports entertaining is because of the competition.
I always feel like people who suggest shit like this just don’t enjoy football. The point of the game is not constant action and drama, if you want that then watch basketball or whatever.
Very few people actually enjoy football the same way other sports are enjoyed.
A big part of the beauty of football is the simplicity, you make the rules messy and convoluted and people will hate it.
Also I don’t think it’s fair to punish teams because of how their opponents set up against them. Last season everyone realised you can’t give us space centrally, and you have to double team our wingers. Now we have to play the lowest block in the world on average, and 90% of teams don’t even press us, they just lock down the middle and hope they can deal with the crosses.
In these games it can be impossible to score four (especially since teams like Everton, Burnley and Sheffield don’t even change their tactics after going down a goal). And I also don’t feel like they should be punished for playing to their strengths, if that’s the best chance they have to get something from the game then let them play like that.
Instead what we should focus on removing is the unsportsmanlike behaviour which often (but not always) comes with these types of performances. I’m talking about rotational fouling certain players the moment they get in a position to hurt them. Incessant time wasting, often even while a goal down because they want to keep it 1-0 until the 85th and then score a corner/free kick so you don’t have time regain the lead. The diving as soon as they get into the opposition half, big strikers throwing themselves to the ground in every aerial duel because a free kick they can put into the box is the best chance they’ll get at a goal.
These are the unsportsmanlike parts of traditional “parking the bus”, and that’s the part we should focus on getting rid of imo. Not sitting deep and defending well, that’s a skill too
The bonus point rule has worked fine in Rugby, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it leads to teams going all out to get the extra point - its exactly what it says; a nice bonus. Plus with the amount of matches these days I would be worried about pushing players even harder.
Mate.
?
We might be more likely but the refs and VAR will make sure that our chances are as low as possible.
woe is me
Lol every year before Christmas, everybody thinks Arsenal would win the league
Well, they could, so could 2 or 3 other teams.
Did you start watching football last season?
Did you start browsing football subreddits last season?
No only arsenal fans think that.
Many of my mates who aren’t arsenal fans also think that. What are you in about?